


What They Say: a feferi tale

by lantadyme



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-25
Updated: 2011-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 02:09:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lantadyme/pseuds/lantadyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes a while for a princess to figure out how she wants to reign.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What They Say: a feferi tale

Feferi is scooped up and carried to the sea, fresh from the trials and bloodshed and the gruesome carnage that all trolls are born into and carry with themselves the rest of their lives. The creature that scoops her up is not her lusus—even at that young an age she knows this—but she feels the touch of something whispering to her that she will be safe. That she should trust this creature for now. She obeys. She sits on the back of the ugly insectoid landcrab and hugs her knees, her smooth skin still slathered in all the colors of the rainbow.

The whispers tell her that she's destined for more than bloodshed and the oppressive dryness of land. It tells her she will never again have to bathe in the colors of her fallen kind, and Feferi is quietly glad for that. She hugs herself and listens to that wise, silent voice in her heart, and she knows she has a kind lusus. Even as small as she is now, she's thankful for that. For someone to protect her from the carnage she left behind just seconds before.

For the first few sweeps of her life she lives near the shore. She lives in the warm waters of a cove, the sand soft and white and beautiful and the fish friendly and calm. The coral gives her protection and the landcrabs roam the beach gutting anything that comes close to their royal-blooded charge. They feed her and Feferi is glad for their kindness, smiling and exploring the shore amongst them as she waits for her swimbladders to grow.

In the quiet times between the tides she curls up in the mouth of the cove at the very bottom of the basin. She wraps herself in kelp and weeds to hold her fast against the tide and she listens. Her lusus' voice is an echo of a whisper, something she only catches snatches of in the loud roar of the waves. She strains to hear and understand what the great creature is saying.

Her lusus is too large to come meet her and Feferi is too small to swim down to the great Gl'bgolyb. The weight of the water would crush her.

The loneliness eats at her on occasion. She catches glimpses of other aquatic trolls and their lusii but the landcrabs won't let her meet them, as precious as she is. For those long first sweeps she lives on tales of the other trolls her lusus has protected, on the stories and encouragement and on promises of better things.

She meets Eridan on the first night of her third sweep. He rides in from the west on his magnificent lusus, tiny in his oversized saddle and with a frown on his face. He's dressed in fancy purples and Feferi has never seen clothes up close before, still draped in colorful kelp in place of clothing. She grins and waves and stands on her toes, excited to meet the first troll in her life.

It's a bit of a disappointment.

She smiles and introduces herself, hugging him and thanking his lusus, saying, "Oh, I'm so excited to finally go down into the depths and meet my lusus and all the trolls and everyone! What is it like? I bet it's beautiful with shells and jellyfish everywhere and everyone is happy! Tell me about it, please, Eridan?"

He just shrugs uncomfortably out of her embrace and gets back on his skyhorse. "Shut up an' get on, princess. I got a job to do an' I don't feel like talkin' to you all day."

He's surly and obnoxious and his speech is lazy, but Feferi doesn't let that spoil her mood. She climbs up behind him, and she's spent most of her life underwater so the wind rustling through her hair makes her grin from ear to ear.

They descend together, falling through the ocean with the bubbles tickling through Eridan's lusus' wake. Her hands grip at his shoulders and she giggles. All he does is shoot her dirty looks over his shoulder. She thinks it's hilarious and as excited as she is, everything makes her laugh.

There's no welcome brigade of aquatic trolls as she'd expected. She sees a few of them riding on the backs of white monsters or combing the weeds for food, but none of them do more than look up at the passing skyhorse no matter how hard Feferi waves. Trolls are mostly solitary; she knows this but somehow she'd at least thought they'd be friendly.

The deep cold water feels fresh in her gills and the pressure on her swimbladders is new and exciting, and Eridan drops her off at the brink of an ocean chasm that falls downward into blackness forever. There, with him and his lusus standing guard, Feferi constructs her hive.

Her lusus' voice is louder here. The whispers that creep up the sides of the abyss are still hard to hear but Feferi doesn't need to strain herself anymore. It makes her heart soar. She curls up at the chasm lip and peers down into the blackness, and she listens.

Life under the sea is different from her cove. At first Feferi isn't sure which she prefers. The other trolls she meets are tolerant of her but dismissive, as if they expect her to simply disappear in a sweep or two. Sometimes she misses the landcrabs and the fish and the coral, but something in her blood tells her she was made for these depths and pressures. She dresses herself in beautiful colors and swears to be nicer than the others are.

"Eridan! Eridan!" she says, wiggling in place and smiling despite his frowns. Gl'bgolyb has asked his lusus to watch over Feferi as she adapts to the new environment—a few weeks at the most—and Feferi relishes finally having someone else around to talk to. "Isn't it lovely down here? It's so cold and fresh and wonderful!"

"Yeah, whatever."

"You don't like it?" She leans forward to peer at him and he only looks more uncomfortable.

"The fuck are you talkin' about, Fef? Course I like it. Just don't spend most of my time down here."

"You live on the surface?"

"On an island, yeah. It's kinda inland so I can keep an eye on the fuckin' coastline."

Something about that baffles her; that someone made for the sea would choose not to live there. "But it's so lovely down here. I don't know why _everyone_ doesn't live in the ocean!"

Eridan snorts and he looks at her like she's the stupidest thing he's ever seen. He rolls his eyes and when he speaks his voice is full of ugly spite. "The fuckin' land dwellers would drown in a second if you threw 'em in the ocean. They got fuckin' mud in their veins, Fef. They live on the land cuz they're too deformed to live out here and shit. Worthless trash."

The hatespeech makes Feferi's mouth fall open. Gl'bgolyb had whispered to her that all trolls fit into society and should be treasured, and to see him smear her lusus' words so completely makes her boil with rage. Her hand closes into a fist and she punches him hard in the jaw. For a long moment afterward neither of them says anything, neither one moving. Eridan looks shocked and a little impressed that this waif of a hick princess has a good right hook. Feferi gapes, struggling to believe she'd just done that.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, feeling the guilty heat in her eyes. "But don't say such horrible things around me, Eridan! You are terrible!"

She learns the blood caste system slowly, and what it means. She learns that most aquatic trolls aren't brought up in the shallows with creatures to care for them like she was. These trolls have lived in the crushing cold depths and survived with their lusii since the beginning, working hard to stay alive, and Feferi sees why they feel less than generous toward her.

Eridan stands off to the side, always within easy reach of his lusus. He still frowns and mutters and fiddles with his rings, but he watches her. Feferi knows she's impressed him with that punch. She doesn't really understand why hurting him would make him take interest in her but she's glad it makes him easier to talk to. Together they wander gathering food while the drones work on Feferi's hive, and he teaches her what's good and what isn't.

"Nah, you don't want that. Tastes like fish shit." He reaches into the weeds and cups something up with both hands, holding it out to her. "These're really good. Don't let him get away."

She folds her hands around his and he lets a tiny shrimp swim through his fingers into hers. Feferi giggles and funnels it into her mouth, chewing the candy red flesh slowly. "Mmmm! Shrimply delicious!"

"Told ya."

Feferi sits at the edge of the great chasm to listen to her lusus' whispers, and occasionally she looks over her shoulder to see Eridan and his ever-present lusus there guarding her. They're both solemn and still but always together. Always side by side. She looks back into the black abyss and thinks about how many miles of water separate her from Gl'bgolyb.

The next day she takes Eridan's hand and says, "Come down there with me!"

Eridan recoils, horror flashing over his face, and he yanks his hand out of hers. Feferi's hopes fall.

"Like fuck I'm goin' down there. It's creepy enough just standin' around here with that fuckin' chasm ready to swallow me up all the time. You're nuts, Fef."

"I know it's dark but I won't lose you. I'll be with you the whole time."

"I ain't scared a getting lost, dipfish," he bites, the words laced with anger and fear. "It's the thing that lives down there."

Feferi struggles to understand. "Something lives there besides Gl'bgolyb?"

"Shit, don't say its name!"

" _It?!_ " she snaps, suddenly furious. "She is my _lusus,_ Eridan!"

Now he's turned away, facing into the current and refusing to look at her over his shoulder. And her rage is ready to bubble back to boiling if he looks disgusted, but as she steps around to see his face all she finds painted there is fear. Unadulterated fear of her lusus.

It makes her stop, utterly speechless.

"Just leave me alone, Fef," he mutters under his breath, swimming off to find his distant skyhorse.

Feferi doesn't understand. She stands there shell-shocked in the current for a long time. Then she's off swimming as fast as she can.

Eridan had shown her one of his maps—a treasure map, but it had the different troll utilities spread across the seafloor marked on it as well. She swims now with that in mind, tiny and alone with no one to watch out for her. The minutes stretch out long and leave her puffing cold water through her gasping gills. She knows what she's looking for and she swims for all she's worth, dodging the big slime-eel caves and the rippersharks and slowly making her way to the library.

It's massive. The doors are coral latticework and colorful waving anemones and the copper hinges scrape with rust as she pulls them open. She floats inside, looking everywhere at once and her heart hammering with exertion. The library is mostly deserted though, more anemone waving within and clownfish poking their faces out to spy on the lost Alternian princess. The books are stacked on beautiful coral shelves, colorful fish darting by in slivers, and Feferi breathes in the musty water, tasting the age.

Trolls must not be fond of libraries, she supposes. She closes the doors behind herself to keep the eels out. In places the coral has grown over the books in puckering lips that will eventually lock the knowledge inside away forever. Feferi floats through the calm water between shelves and eventually she finds what she's looking for:

A book detailing the succession of the Alternian queens, the royal-blooded lineage; and the one lusus who had protected them all since the dawn of civilization.

Gl'bgolyb.

The lineage goes back forever in a convoluted spiral of murder and subterfuge. The emperess under her care would grow old enough to leave the planet for the armada beyond. A new royal child would eventually be hatched and the old monarch would be consumed with the need to slaughter the younger to remain in command. Again and again her blood-kin had schemed and murdered, children and adults alike, and as the pages go on Feferi's stomach turns and all she can do is close the book and look away.

So many deaths. It makes her feel sick.

She understands now why her lusus had hidden her away from prying eyes, raising her by proxy until she was old enough to make decisions to defend herself. She watches as her colorful tears tint the water a beautiful purple and she refuses to let herself sob.

But this wasn't what she came here to learn.

She cracks the book open again, flipping through to the end and the scant last chapter about her magnificent lusus.

What could possibly have frightened Eridan so badly?

She reads a tale about her lusus that scares her to her core. Gl'bgolyb is a terrible monster, a creature with so much psychic power that she hears the words of the horrorterrors beyond the veil. They tell her hints of the future, and her voice is powerful enough to rend the world. Even one word spoken above a whisper is enough to destroy the land dwellers' minds and paint the ground with their blood. The sea trolls feed her because if they did not, she would speak her hunger and murder them all. The world constantly balances on the precipice of that vast glub and all trolls fear her for her deadly, terrible voice.

And that horror from the deep had never whispered a word about it to her.

Feferi hurls the book at the shelf and dashes from the library. She races over the long leagues to her hive and throws herself over the side of the chasm, falling slowly into the black abyss and screaming her rage and frustration:

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME!?"

Gl'bgolyb voice is a whisper wrapped in an echo and it flutters in Feferi's ears.

And let you know I was such a monster? I have raised thousands like that.

"No wonder they thought I was so stupid! They have been catching food to feed you for _sweeps_ so you wouldn't kill them all with one word! All those sea dwellers killing each others' lusii and the lusii of the land dwellers and the animals that aren't lusii yet! They've been working themselves to _death_ to feed you, and you never even told me!"

That is why the purple-blooded exist.

"I have purple blood!" she screams. " _What makes me different?_ "

Those with your royal blood can understand my voice, and if they choose to listen I will help them lead with the good of all trolls in mind.

The words bubble up out of the darkness and somehow they take a bit of the fire out of Feferi's heart. "You told me all trolls were good. That they all had a place." For a heartwrenching moment she had believed her blood was good for no more than murderous insanity, but this new truth stills her fears. The darkness swallows her up and when Feferi speaks again her voice is nothing but an honest whisper. "How long has it been since someone with my blood listened to you?"

Millennia. This space war was far from my suggestion.

Feferi clenches her fists in anger at that answer.

She's deeper now than she's ever been before and it's uncomfortable, the pressure hard on her swimbladders. She wonders idly if Eridan's blood biology would even let him descend this far. Maybe only her blood-kin are adapted to do it. She drifts lower, pressure building like fire in her chest, and she squints into the darkness for a glimpse of her terrible lusus.

"Is this the first time you've hidden your wriggler away for her first sweeps?"

Yes.

"What makes me special?"

A prophecy from beyond the veil.

Feferi blinks, and in these depths the pressure makes her eyes ache.

You will be the last Alternian princess. Our universe is ticking down its last days and you will unite the races when everything is ended.

"Me?"

Yes, Feferi. Do you trust me again?

For a moment she isn't sure. Gl'bgolyb must know everything and Feferi is sure she has more things to hide. The entirety of her tiny life swims before her aching eyes and she's never felt so small before. She floats next to this wise, ancient creature and she knows she needs to trust her lusus if she wants to be different from all the royal-bloods that came before her. If she wants to rule with the kindness Gl'bgolyb had taught her instead of murderous rage.

The one who taught her that kindness can't possibly be so monstrous.

"Yes, I trust you," she says with a smile.

I'm glad, young one. Very glad. Now you must ascend. You are still too small to stray this low. I'm sure you feel the pressure in your eyes.

A pale tentacle curls out of the darkness, its massive toothed suction cups chewing at the icy water. It turns its smooth side toward her and nudges carefully at her feet, and Feferi bends to sit and let Gl'bgolyb's massive tentacle loft her back onto the edge of the chasm and out of the blackness.

\----------

Eridan finds her later and he gapes. "The fuck happened to your eyes, Fef? They're all bruised up."

Feferi laughs and beams as she says, "I went down into the depths to see my wonderful lusus! I guess the pressure was too much for my eyes, though. I look like a raccoonfish!"

The next day he gives her a pair of beautiful purple goggles, the same color as her royal blood, and Feferi vows to never take them off.


End file.
